Addiction
by Myenzie
Summary: Everyone is addicted to something. Even Harry Potter.


**Addiction**

I stop myself from reaching for the bottle. I know I rely on it far too much, its contents giving me the "high" needed to deal with the accelerated pace of my training and the obligations I agreed to undertake when Kingsley asked me to work with the Aurors at the same time that I train to be one of them.

He doesn't approve, and neither does Ginny.

I know they are right.

One would think the contents fairly tame, but I have to admit that I see the consequences when I have trouble sleeping at nights, staring at the ceiling even after cuddling with my beautiful wife of only a few weeks.

(I stop for a moment and think about that cuddling, completely distracted from my train of thought, and smile in a way I am glad no one else sees while I sit here in my office.)

Sighing, I take the bottle of brown, fizzy liquid and put it back into the charmed cold box I keep in a corner of my office. I will have to live on the caffeine in the six cups of coffee and two bottles of Diet Coke I have already consumed.

hphphp

I have worked late, again. I don't know what is wrong with me – I seem to be compelled to do this work; it is almost as if I can't help myself, as if I can't stop.

I am often the first in the office. Everyone knows they can count on me to be there in a crisis – I am called into the office often enough on weekends that I know it irritates Ginny, but what am I to do?

Voldemort is gone, the back of his organization broken and most of the sympathizers afraid still. They really were cowards, the lot of them, and have mostly (at least those who escaped imprisonment) crawled under their well-furnished and luxurious rocks.

But there are still people who want something for nothing, seek power over others for some sick and sadistic reason, or are somehow not inhibited in their behavior toward their fellow man, muggle or magical.

I cannot ignore the fact that I can do something about it. And so, while it would be easier to sit back and let others worry about it, I work this job because I have to do it – I am driven.

hphphp

Molly is the best cook in the world. I feel safe in saying that, because it is what Ginny always says.

I do not mean to take anything away from Ginny – she is a great cook and I have no complaint whatsoever about her skills in the kitchen (or anywhere else!). I eat at the Burrow with sufficient infrequency to not attribute my larger belt size to Molly.

But her cooking doesn't hurt my widening waist that I am determined to fight.

After I finish my third helping of Molly's treacle tart.

I swear.

hphphp

This "thing" that we have now -- I blame it on George! – playing poker the third Saturday of every month is getting out of hand.

And I know that Ginny barely tolerates it.

It doesn't help that I apparently wear my heart on my sleeve. I swear I don't win more than a hand or two a night.

Ginny is not impressed with the trouble this causes, coming up with enough money each month. I feel guilty about it – really I do – but other than glaring at me once in a while, she hasn't said anything.

I know it is an imposition for her to find a way to collect a hundred knuts each month – she adds them to the jar on the mantle each time she comes back from the grocery store. I know she trades sickles for her mum's knuts sometimes, and George has even said she has raided the cash register at the store sometimes.

I don't know what I would do without her.

hphphp

Ginny says she wishes I would run every morning. She hates it mostly when it is cold and wet outside and I drip on the floor when I come in after my run.

How else am I supposed to keep the pounds at bay? Give up Molly's treacle tart?

I think not.

I have tried sleeping in. Really I have. I just can't – there's some sort of a high I get from it.

I think maybe it is some sort of endorphin rush. I run and the world and its problems seem to fade into the background.

And I try to hide it sometimes. Last Sunday I did my run in the dark and showered and tried to clean everything up, and then crawled back into bed before Ginny woke up.

I know she knew. But she didn't say anything.

Didn't I say something earlier about cuddling?

hphphp

Quidditch is OK.

Do not tell Ron I said that, though, or the only way I'll shut him up is by sicking Hermione on him.

Flying is brilliant.

It is freedom and excitement and peace and beauty all rolled together.

I especially love it when I fly with Ginny.

She wraps her arms around me and scoots up so close I feel her entire body pressed against my back.

Flying is brilliant but not as brilliant as being with Ginny.

hphphp

My son.

James. James Sirius Potter. Not Jim and definitely NOT Jimmy.

Boys are not supposed to be beautiful. They are rugged, handsome, manly.

Don't ever tell anyone that the second most beautiful thing I have ever seen was my son, James. A promise of future and family that I still cannot believe I am living.

As I show him to his family – his family! – I am amazed that we are where we are, that my family will have what I did not, that the future will be a better place for my son, my godson Teddy, and my nieces and nephews, better than I ever knew or hoped for while growing up.

Molly is holding him now, so I can sit down. I remember hunting horcrux. I never spoke of it, but I truly thought I would die when finally I had to face Voldemort. I never told Ron and Hermione that I expected not to survive.

I remember sitting at night, outside that tent, looking at the map, touching my finger to the dot labeled "Ginny Weasley" and hoping that I might see her once again. And not really expecting to.

The hardest thing I ever did in my life was leaving her behind.

I remember walking through the forest to meet Voldemort. Talking to my parents and Sirius and Remus gave me some comfort because I knew I would be with them soon. And that someday, with Ginny again, too.

And looking down Voldemort's wand, I knew again that the hardest part was that I was going to leave Ginny behind, again.

I don't know why I think of these things now, when everything should be happy and light, except that this is a time in my life I never really believed I would live to see. Some part of me didn't believe it could really be true even as Ginny and I hurried here to St. Mungo's.

And I am holding James again and cannot tell people what my tears of happiness truly mean.

Except Ginny.

But not tonight.

hphhp

The most beautiful thing I have ever seen is here, before me now.

James is asleep in his crib.

Ginny is tired – I can see that. But she is beautiful now and always.

The morning after that horrible night – obviously tired and sad, with eyes reddened with tears of sorrow, then laughing and crying at the same time in my arms.

Sad and crying at the funerals after.

Smiling and looking up into my eyes when I told her, the first time, that I love her.

At our wedding in the garden of the Burrow, outshining the sun and putting the song of the birds and the whispers of the wind to shame with the beauty of her laugh.

Flying like the dickens for the Harpies, smiling ear-to-ear after scoring a goal.

Even after being grazed by the bludger and with her cheek puffy and bruised.

She is always beautiful and always will be, until the day I die.

And after, when I am with Mum and Dad and Sirius and Remus and Tonks, we will still be together and she will be with me, forever beautiful.

I am addicted to her, you see. Utterly, wholly and entirely addicted. I am compelled to be with her, obsessed in my thoughts of her and dependant upon her for my happiness. And I would not have it any other way.

_This story is dedicated to my wife Paula, to whom I am unalterably and unabashedly addicted._


End file.
